Clinton Trip to Stress European Unity Hopes

By DOUGLAS JEHL,

Published: July 4, 1994

WASHINGTON, July 3—
President Clinton heads to Europe on Tuesday for the third time this year to begin a weeklong tour that advisers hope can restore some shine to his foreign-policy credentials.

The main occasion for the trip is the annual meeting of the Group of Seven economic powers, which will open on Friday in Naples, Italy. But Mr. Clinton has framed that stop with visits to Latvia, Poland and Germany to show he is a champion of efforts to forge a truly integrated Europe.

From a celebration in Riga, Latvia, of the Baltic countries' hard-won independence to a ceremony in Berlin marking the end of the American military's presence, Mr. Clinton will proceed along stepping stones chosen as reminders of what the cold war's passing has brought and may yet promise.

With his stops in Riga, Warsaw, Naples, Bonn and finally Berlin, Mr. Clinton clearly hopes to retouch his portrait so he is given more credit for his efforts to rebind a recently divided Europe in ways that would make it more prosperous and more secure. Outline of Clinton's Theme

In an interview last week with a German reporter, Mr. Clinton sketched out what he said would be his theme as he becomes the first American President to visit a Baltic country and the first to set foot in Germany since the collapse of the Berlin wall.

"My message will be that we've torn down the walls, but now we have to build the bridges," the President said. "We have to unite Europe, and we have to move forward on security issues, on economic issues, to make a better world."

Mr. Clinton's advisers have made clear that they intend to spend the week trying to redress what they regard as an injustice -- that Americans' attention to trouble spots like Rwanda and Haiti has taken attention from policy successes central to the transformation of Europe.

Nonetheless, the President will also have to contend on this trip with problems that have dogged him since his foreign debut, including the war in Bosnia, tensions with North Korea over nuclear weapons and the plunging value of the American dollar.

The White House has thrown much of its energy for the last week into planning what promises to be a complicated journey. When Mr. Clinton visited Europe last month for the D-Day commemoration, he acted mostly as commentator and spectator; this week he is to hold what may in some cases be rancorous talks with at least 13 heads of state, including President Boris N. Yeltsin of Russia.

Mr. Clinton will fly from Washington on Tuesday night directly to Riga, the Latvian capital, where he is to speak on Wednesday in Freedom Square to a crowd swollen by visitors from the neighboring Baltic countries of Lithuania and Estonia.

Now that Russian troops have withdrawn from Lithuania and are scheduled to be out of Latvia by the end of August, the President's visit is intended in large part to celebrate an end to five decades of occupation that the United States never recognized. Issue of Estonia Pullout

Russia has not yet agreed to terms for the pullout of its forces from Estonia, however. After meeting with Estonia's President, aides say, Mr. Clinton intends to tell Mr. Yeltsin in Naples that it is essential that Russia abide by its promise to withdraw all of its troops from the three Baltic countries by Aug. 31.

In Warsaw, where he is to arrive Wednesday night, Mr. Clinton hopes to reassure Poland and the leaders of other Eastern European countries that the United States does not regard them as falling under some new Russian sphere of influence, even though Washington and its allies are not yet ready to include them in NATO.

Mr. Clinton's speech before the Polish Parliament on that issue was conceived by his advisers as the main one of his European trip. Administration officials said last week that they were determined that he convey to the former Communists who have gained in power in Poland that the road to prosperity and security still leads westward.

Mr. Clinton proceeds later on Thursday to Naples, where he will hold a series of meetings including his first encounter with Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama of Japan. Precarious Situation in Japan

Mr. Murayama has just become Japan's first Socialist Party leader in 46 years, and his position at home remains so uncertain that Mr. Clinton made clear in an interview on Friday with a Japanese reporter that he saw little hope for quick progress in trade talks between the two countries, saying of the confused situation in Tokyo, "Nothing is stable forever."

Mr. Clinton's meeting with Mr. Yeltsin comes on Sunday, when the Russian President joins political discussions for the first time among the Group of Seven. That big meeting is likely to produce a statement endorsing a detailed proposal for peace in Bosnia due to be issued on Tuesday by the four-nation Contact Group. But the session could expose more frictions over North Korea's nuclear program, with Russia seeking a bigger role in the search for a solution.

The President's final stop, in Germany, was planned in part to soothe any hurt feelings left by the exclusion of German officials from the 50th-anniversary celebration of the Allied landing in the Normandy. But advisers say a main theme of his discussions in Bonn next Monday will be that Germany, a reluctant player since World War II, should now take a more active role in international affairs, assuming burdens befitting its size and power.

On Tuesday, July 12, the last day of his trip, Mr. Clinton will seek in an address at the Brandenburg Gate to recapture the spell cast 32 years ago by his political idol, John F. Kennedy, who spoke to 150,000 Berliners at the height of the cold war.

Mr. Clinton described that speech last week as "one of the formative political images of my childhood." But the final image of his trip will send a very different signal as he takes part in the deactivation of the Berlin Brigade, formed in 1961 at the height of the Berlin wall crisis. Its departure this summer will bring an end to an American military presence in Berlin that has been constant since 1945.